I can't rest without knowing where Maddie is,says Kate McCann as she reveals she still feels 'in limbo' nine years after he daughter's disappearance

Kate McCann 'cannot rest' until she finds out what happened to Maddie

The 47-year-old said she feels 'in eternal limbo' without her daughter

Maddie went missing at family's holiday home in Portugal in 2007 by Joseph Curtis For Mailonline - Published: 16:24, 20 February 2016 | Updated: 17:12, 20 February 2016

Kate McCann has revealed she feels in an ‘eternal state of limbo’ over the disappearance of her daughter Maddie and will never find peace until she finds out what happened to her.

The mother-of-three, from Leicester, and her husband Gerry have been searching for their daughter for almost 10 years after she went missing from their holiday home in Portugal in 2007.

Mrs McCann said she has learnt to cope better with the pain of not having her eldest daughter around but ‘cannot rest’ until she learns the truth.

Speaking to The Sun, she said: ‘All parents of missing children will say the same thing. You just can’t rest without knowing, it’s just that permanent state, often it’s like a physical thing, limbo, a feeling, just not at peace.’

She added: ‘Gerry was always better than me from the beginning at jumping into a box and getting on with other things, focusing on other stuff.

‘It just took me longer really, although I can do it now and sometimes I hate myself doing that, it doesn’t feel right, but I know it’s a positive thing.’

As previously reported, Mrs McCann revealed she and her husband 'have kept nothing' about Maddie's disappearance from her brother and sister, twins Amelie and Sean, now 11.

She said the twins don't talk about Madeleine, whose 13th birthday is in May, as much as they did when she went missing, but still raise money at school to support the efforts to find her.

The McCanns have led an eight-year campaign to keep the search for the youngster going since she went missing while they were on holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

Mrs McCann recently thanked the public for all their support over the years which she said 'kept them going'.

The couple have also recently launched a campaign with charity Missing People and the National Crime Agency to help find missing children or flag up when youngsters are in danger.

As previously reported, they say they have not lost hope in finding their daughter, despite the resources put into the search being scaled back by police last year.

Scotland Yard announced in October it was dramatically cutting the number of officers in the probe, known as Operation Grange, from 29 to four.

The operation, launched in 2011 at the request of David Cameron, has so far cost upwards of £11m.

Dr Martin Roberts: "The evidence is that these are the pjyamas Madeleine wore on holiday in Praia da Luz. They were photographed and the photo handed to a press agency, who released it on 8 May, as the search for Madeleine continued. The McCanns held up these same pyjamas at two press conferences on 5 & 7June 2007. How could Madeleine have been abducted?"

@worriedmum wrote:Why are we being flooded with these 'non-stories'? What is happening somewhere else? It's as if someone has left a tap on somewhere...

Kate's recent attack of verbal diarrhea was to bury the headlines that the McCanns hired even more crooks to search for their missing child, and didn't give a stuff when warned of fraudulent charges being made. Not the first time money donated by well meaning people to search for Maddie has been whoosh clucked. In yet the teams they hire to protect their image have been second to none. Go figure!

She added: ‘Gerry was always better than me from the beginning at jumping into a box and getting on with other things, focusing on other stuff.‘It just took me longer really, although I can do it now and sometimes I hate myself doing that, it doesn’t feel right, but I know it’s a positive thing.’

I have never been allowed to say this before.I’ve been given all sorts of reasons — people who are normally brutally honest with me fobbing me off, arguing I am not bringing anything new to the debateIt’s been a white-out, like the silence of snow.But seeing the faces of Gerry and Kate McCann yet again this week, promoting the Child Rescue Alert Campaign to track down missing kids, I think it's finally time to speak out.Kate McCann says she lives in a never-ending limbo.But I believe the truth is that Madeleine McCann is never coming home.She is long gone. It is time to stop looking and stop imagining there is some happy ending to this sorry tale. Enough.There is no amount of money the will right the wrongs of the past, no libel action that will cancel out the damage the McCanns inflicted on themselves.Kate and Gerry McCann didn't deserve £11million of our cash to look for Maddie or try to resolve their consciences or salvage reputations. Others have greater need.If you really must blame someone, then Kate and Gerry are right there in front of you. And yet, protected by some invisible force-shield I don’t understand.Show me a family from a council estate who left their child alone to go out eating and drinking who have been lauded with such support and the protection of the state.Last year, a father of a two year old was arrested and prosecuted after leaving his daughter in a car for two minutes whilst he ran in to a chemist to buy Calpol.

Even our British broadcaster was in on the act. A Crimewatch Special in 2013 featuring new photo-fits of Maddie’s abductor failed to acknowledge that the McCanns had been sitting on these pictures for nearly five years.Pictures compiled by their own investigation team whose report they later hid from view when it pointed the finger of blame in a direction Gerry didn't enjoy.They left their child in an unlocked ground-floor apartment next to two busy roads. Too self-assured to hire a babysitter and too self-centred to care.

The McCanns put their own children in harm’s way. Those kids were in danger. Because of their parents. And as a mum I can’t look at Gerry McCann — a man his wife says can ‘switch off’ from grief — without the hairs on my arms standing on end.Kate was no better. There were 48 police questions Kate McCann refused to answer after Maddie was gone. Surely if you wanted to find your child you would give anything, tell police everything you knew, offer anything you had?We are not the police. We cannot pretend to know what really went on.What happened that night will remain a mystery and someone will take the truth to their graveBut we can understand as parents how we would feel if it happened to us.Any mother who has lost her child even for a heartbeat understands how horrifying it is.

Kate and Gerry McCann didn't deserve £11million of our cash to look for Maddie or try to resolve their consciences or salvage reputations

The prickle under the armpit, the sudden silence in a noisy shopping centre, the blind panic. Running through treacle while time stands still.Waiting for a little face to show itself, telling her off when she reappears because you love her so much you can’t bear for her to be lost even for a second. And in that second you imagined the very worst.When your first baby is born you join a special group of people – a group whose lives have been transformed.That first morning in hospital you understand the enormity of your new responsibility to keep another little part of you alive. You have accepted The Fear.Suddenly the life you knew before is transformed, filled with all the bad things that could happen to your baby. Jabs which go wrong. Death in a cot for no reason. Spots on the chest which don’t go away under glass.You live every second with The Fear that your baby will be taken from you, or die before you and upset the natural order of life turning everything you trusted into a lie.I still live in dread of my children’s lives being shortened, that someone might take them from me, strip away the thing I would happily hand over my own life to sustain.I tell them to shout fire if someone grabs them. And I will never need them to get in a strangers car, no matter what they say.Others give their children phones, hoping these will keep them safe, imagining them to be protection from predators roaming our streets looking for baby prey.Mine sleep with the soft toy bunnies they have had since the day they were born. Not so cuddly now, mostly rags at best.

+3Katie Hopkins says her children sleep with the soft toy bunnies they have had since the day they were bornBut rags which I will keep if I live to watch my children grow old. They are keepsakes of another time, when my kids were chubby and twitchy in their cots, when they needed me more fundamentally.For warmth and food, cuddles for tears and encouragement to be brave.And when they leave me for families of their own, for every day I wished I didn’t have to do the school run, there will be a thousand more when I am grateful that I did, knowing I kept them safe.But now the faces I associate with neglect are being used to promote the Child Rescue Alert campaign.And I am sorry, but I am not buying it.Because nothing in this story reads well to the mum in me. Or the dad if that's you.Leaving your babies alone, too far away to see. Knowing your daughter is gone and still able to play tennis. Taking her little bed-time toy, Cuddle Cat, with the last smell of their daughter, and putting it in the wash just five days after she vanished into the night.I speak to people who have lost parents and cannot bear to wipe messages from their answer machine because it’s something to hold on to. They keep them just to feel close.Some even call their mothers’ phone, just to hear it ring and imagine she might there to say ‘sleep tight’ one last time.I would put Cuddle Cat under my pillow every night to be close to the baby I lost. Not wash its memories away.The night before she became a memory, Maddie asked her mother, ‘Why did you not come when Sean and I cried last night?I’d ask her the same question now. How did you leave the daughter you longed to have?Maddie wasn’t lost because someone took her. She was lost because she was left to be found

null, about 2 hours agoNever thought I would say this.... But I agree with everything she says re the Maddy story[size=12]ReplyNew

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BARGET, SOUTH YORKSHIRE, United Kingdom, about 2 hours agoStrong direct words well put together, some will cringe at them, some will be upset by them, BUT they are undeniably words to make one think in a very serious manner.[size=12]ReplyNew

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Nikcalp, calpe, Spain, about 2 hours agoI normally disagree with th is womans point of view. On this rare occasion, i whole heartedly agree with her......

imscottishenoughsaid, coventry, United Kingdom, about 2 hours agoKatie once again dares to say what everyone is thinking. Thank you for such a well written article.

The peaceful poo, Southampton, United Kingdom, 1 hour agoThe only thing I have ever agreed with Katie Hopkins[size=12]ReplyNew

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Panamaparis222, Panama, 1 hour agoNot the most pleasant article but it tells the truth. These children should not have been alone. 8 adults and one couldn't babysit whilst the rest were at dinner

scotsfem, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 1 hour agoI have never found myself agreeing with Katie Hopkins but I do with every word she has written. I would not leave my purse lying on the bed in an apartment or a hotel on holiday let alone my children.ReplyNew

Eddie and Keela alerted to items and places concerned with the McCanns - and importantly to no other items or places.

According to Eddie and Keela, the body of Madeleine McCann lay lifeless behind the sofa in Apartment 5a, clinging to the only thing from which she could derive any comfort; a soft toy called 'Cuddle cat'.

Kate's book 'madeleine', Page 219: "Did they really believe that a dog could smell the 'odour of death' three months later from a body that had been removed so swiftly?"

After forensic analysis of the 'Last Photo' there is little doubt now that the pool photo CANNOT POSSIBLY have been taken on the Thursday 3rd May, but most likely on the Sunday 29th April. So, where was Madeleine at lunchtime on Thursday?

John McCann:"This was terrible for them, Kate dressed Amelie in her sister's pyjamas and the baby said: "Maddy's jammies, where is Maddy?"Martin Roberts:"If Madeleine's pyjamas had not, in fact, been abducted then neither had Madeleine McCann."Dr Martin Roberts: A Nightwear Job

Death Toll in McCann Case

Gerry McCann called for an example to be made of 'trolls'. SKY reporter Martin Brunt doorstepped Brenda Leyland on 2 October 2014 after a 'Dossier' was handed in to Police by McCann supporters. She was then found dead in a Leicester hotel room the next day. Brenda paid the price.

Colin Sahlke died suddenly in mysterious circumstances with a significant amount of morphine in his system. At the Inquest the coroner said there was no evidence as to how he had come to take morphine, and no needle mark was found.Gerry McCann had met Sahlkebefore he helped with the search but did not show any concern for his death. Link

Ex-Met DCI Andy Redwood had a "revelation moment" on BBC1's Crimewatch on 14th October 2013 when he announced that Operation Grange had eliminated the Tanner sighting - which opened up the 'window' of opportunity' from 3 minutes to 45 minutes, in accordance with their remit, to allow the staged abduction to happen.

The 'SunOnline' journalist, Tracey Kandohla: "A McCann pal told The Sun Online: "Some of the savings have been siphoned off from the Find Maddie Fund into a fixed asset account, which financial experts have advised them to do. It can be used for purchases like buying a house, or building equipment."